Inevitable PBN footprints?

So people say that PBNs are safe as long as you do everything "right" and leave no footprints.


But to make a PBN, you buy expired domains with pre-existing backlinks and put your own websites on them. When you do that, these things happen:
- The WHOIS information changes
- The hosting IP changes
- The hosting provider changes (likely)
- The website layout/CMS/theme changes
- The website content changes


For all practical purposes, this is a NEW website. I would think that if you're Google, then these things are pretty easy to spot and track.


So I have two questions to all PBN builders:

1) Isn't it like a massive footprint when the bulk of the seemingly valuable links pointing to your moneysite match the criteria above?
2) Aren't you worried that Google will soon start discounting pre-existing links to your PBN sites? After all, Google should know that these links appeared before the website changed completely. I think if I were Google and it was technically feasible, then I wouldn't count these old links as "votes" anymore since they are pointing to a completely different website now.


I'm a noob, so take it easy on me. Just looking for some intelligent answers to these questions. Thanks!

You are looking to deep into things.

In the future the above could be a footprint but right now google is not looking at the things you mentioned.

Also this method would only catch newly registered pbns, you could always register PBN domains over time and link to your money site over time.

Problem solved already

You are giving Google way too much credit. (They love to spread fear and give the impression they know all, in fact that is still a long way from the truth.

But I get your points in general. A manual review would spot these things. I would NEVER buy a PBN that was built with some of these elements.
Sites bought over time (months)

WHOIS hidden (Google have no right to general WHOIS data if you have selected privacy - and hosts often use different privacy providers so WHOIS can have plenty of variation.
I repeat Google have NO RIGHTS to WHOIS data if privacy is selected, they are also not allowed to arbitrarily farm WHOIS data. It is not theirs, they are not the internet police.

Hosting provider may change - it may not. You don't want all on the same host anyway so why not keep some on the original host provider? Again obscured by time anyway

Theme changes? Maybe again only Google holding massive amounts of data on every site would show this. But why would you automatically change all the themes/CMS methods? You might change a few, you might not.

Website content changes. This is the hard one. I prefer to jus add content over time if the existing content is available - but more often than not it isn't (unless you use waybackmachine to farm it)

Also - don't selfishly just link to yourself. Link to other (none competing sites) and your own site over time, from different URLs to different URLs.


A good point you make is that I've have never seen a 3rd party PBN provider take or offer anything even remotely approaching this element of care. But doing it yourself is certainly possible.
Ok most of it isn't needed today/now - but much of it may become crucial when Google moves its hate cannon onto the next target. Though I don't think they will cover all these options for a very long time.

Good post - valid questions though

All that stuff you mentioned happens for normal websites every now and then. Infact I bet less than 0.1% of IP changes for websites (for example) happen because someone is building a PBN.

There is no way google will penalise every website that changes host, has a domain dropped or updates who is information...

As far as the theme goes, i never use wordpress, i rebuild expired domains, basic .html ones, then turn them to .php and pull an article from a mysql database, or from a .txt file if that helps.

Graham

They are not tracking this and I don't think they ever will.

1) No. I'd never recommend using only PBNs to point to your site. They should just be a few links among many.

2) No. Google has been saying for years that previous "web equity" will not transfer, but it's all just bluster. They have no way of knowing how sites are transferred, rebuilt, reclaimed, or anything else. Buying and selling sites is big business, and that changes all those details as well.

OutOfContext said:

So people say that PBNs are safe as long as you do everything "right" and leave no footprints.


But to make a PBN, you buy expired domains with pre-existing backlinks and put your own websites on them. When you do that, these things happen:
- The WHOIS information changes
- The hosting IP changes
- The hosting provider changes (likely)
- The website layout/CMS/theme changes
- The website content changes


For all practical purposes, this is a NEW website. I would think that if you're Google, then these things are pretty easy to spot and track.


So I have two questions to all PBN builders:

1) Isn't it like a massive footprint when the bulk of the seemingly valuable links pointing to your moneysite match the criteria above?
2) Aren't you worried that Google will soon start discounting pre-existing links to your PBN sites? After all, Google should know that these links appeared before the website changed completely. I think if I were Google and it was technically feasible, then I wouldn't count these old links as "votes" anymore since they are pointing to a completely different website now.


I'm a noob, so take it easy on me. Just looking for some intelligent answers to these questions. Thanks!

Click to expand...

You'd be amazed how often that happens on legit sites for legit businesses - they have a company handling their whole "online presence" from website to ads and social networks. They switch over to a new company which means new hosting, cms, even domain ownership sometimes, different registrar.

And that's just one scenario. There are tons just like it. Google can't just say everything revived in a new environment is PBN because that would be at the cost of regular people/businesses, thus making Google give less relevant results.

accelerator_dd said:

There are tons just like it. Google can't just say everything revived in a new environment is PBN because that would be at the cost of regular people/businesses, thus making Google give less relevant results.

Click to expand...

That's the one and only reason why Google doesn't devalue expiring domain the second they drop. Too much collateral damage. Detection is never a problem, separating the legit use from abuse is.

Thanks for all the replies!

I guess the takeaway is that it's too difficult for Google to separate legit cases from PBNs, especially if one maintains a diversified link profile where only part of the incoming links are PBN based.